Stars in a Time Warp

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About Me

I've owned my quilt shop since 1990, specializing in antique reproduction fabrics. Made my first quilt in 1976 which greatly reduced my sewing of clothing! Would like to find more time to SEW.......maybe when I retire? Am married to a farmer, have 3 children and 4 grandchildren who are the light of my life!!!

Friday, August 26, 2011

This is a little quilt I made for my Prairie Women's Sewing Circle......love this Sawtooth Star! Went together very well and I just love the Indigo and Cheddar print! Now, tho, I want to make Another One using the same Indigo again but with a Cheddar background! Unfortunately, my mind works much faster than my hands!!! I machine-quilted this one in my usual manner of Stitching in the Ditch around the blocks which is enough to hold it so I can bind it for display. Decided it needed more quilting just because I like the feel of more quilting! With the light shirting background, I did not want to draw pencil lines, so I used my Hera marker, which is a plastic tool for marking a crease. Following the crease lines was easy but it still took me about 3 hours to quilt the whole quilt..........I am not a very fast machine-quilter!!

While it is the Brackman's "Lately Arrived from London" and Andover's "Hewson" that I am really waiting for, other beautiful fabrics arrived this week! "Northern Cardinal" by Holly Taylor for Moda is not what I usually order, but you will see why I did in the photos. Some of these fabrics look like "antique woodblock" prints! A perfect example of fabrics that look old and will work in reproduction quilts but are not marketed as "reproduction". The second photo shows colorful "Swiss Holiday" by Moda.....kinda bright colors BUT the prints are the Jacobean-type florals that I love!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

What a show we had this year! Jo Morton came to teach and visited my booth a few times to chat and shop!!! She gave me permission to tell you that she buys fabric! And she bought my kit for the 8-point star "Hope" Collection for a Cause because she liked the little metal lunchbox that came with it! My quilt top is visible in photo #4 at the far left.........it is only 1/3 done, but I am enjoying hand-piecing the 8-pt Stars.

Many of my friends took Jo's classes and enjoyed them very much! Inspired them, in fact, to purchase yet more fabric!! It was wonderful to meet ladies from the Jo's Stitchers Yahoo group! I was able to attend the noon lecture/lunch, which, by the way was a Sellout!! One of my customers in the Jo's Little Women Club made the Hourglass quilt using 474 different Jo fabrics. Notice the "Banner Day" and "Imagine" quilts in the background? They are Jo's quilts that she offered to loan me to hang in my booth. I chose the "Imagine" quilt as she had hand-quilted it and I like to promote traditional methods as much as possible!!!

In the foreground you can see the Jo's "Spice Chest" cheater fabric which I had longarm-quilted for a table cover. Isn't it gorgeous? Have many cheater fabrics on hand right now........they seem to be popular and you have to take it when available!!

I love using my antique quilts to cover the tables in the booth. One quilt covering the table at the far left in photo 4 is actually the reverse of a badly-damaged quilt that has exquisite hand-quilting! That quilting needs to be preserved! It has taken me two days to recouperate, catch up and rest up and I will soon forget how much work is involved and sign the forms for next year's show later in the fall!

And it is not over yet! A surprise visitor! Ladies had requested me to open my shop Fri/Sat evenings and guess who showed up with some of her students? Jeana Kimball! Enjoyed chatting with her and selling her some fabrics she said she had "missed" ! Someday it would be nice to actually take a class with these Teachers!